Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...

Paul Chan's work has been known to show the cycle of change. Learners explore the concept of change by analyzing his work and reading the poem "For Which it Stands." They consider symbolism, communication, art, and society as they use...

Students explore 5 senses poetry.  In this poetry writing activity, students visualize a special day and brainstorm related vivid adjectives and phrases.  Students create mindmaps of the five senses to go with their...

If you're looking to tie rap music into poetry writing, this would be a good presentation to use as you kick off your mini-unit. Learners are given a brief, but descriptive, history of rap music and rap poetry. The slides include...

Students read various examples of poetry and create a poetry portfolio. In this poetry writing lesson, students work at their own pace to complete a poetry portfolio with examples of the different poetic forms demonstrated. ...

Fun awaits both you and your class as you embark on a musical activity. After discussing different rhythmic meters they choose a poem to set to music. The poem must rhyme and be set to a melody in the key of C Major. Because the activity...

Bring a little excitement to your next poetry analysis lesson. Using the highly energetic poem "Walking With My Iguana," learners consider poem structure and rhyme. They listen to the poem, discuss the rhythm and tone with their...

Students research the surrealism movement and its primary artists. Language is also analyzed, and students will create their own original poem utilizing surrealistic techniques.

Learning to analyze language, symbols, and codes is part of becoming a deep and critical thinker. Young analysts consider their ability to see hidden messages as they analyze the work of Paul Chan. There are two fully developed...

Introduce your class to ekphrastic poetry with an exercise that asks them to examine Edward Hooper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad." After a close reading...

In this poetry writing worksheet, students create their own acrostic poem. The title is "My Teacher." The first letter of every line is provided.

Using Walt Whitman's Song of Myself and Hart Crane's The Bridge as models, class groups first craft their own epic poems for 1900 and, using primary sources, create a multi-media presentation that captures the sights and...

Learners explore botany by participating in a language arts activity. In this garden poetry lesson, students read the classic poem "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary" and discuss the imagery and rhyming methods used. Learners examine their own...

Here, Autumn Poplars is the painting upper graders will analyze. They look at techniques, time period, and the use of impressionism to convey a natural theme. They go outside to make observations of nature and use what they see to write...

Help your class create collective poetry following a simple, engaging model from Teaching Tolerance (tolerance.org). Each young poet writes five things on an index card: sayings from others, favorite sound, favorite place, favorite...

Students work in groups to determine a creative writing theme. They listen to each other to produce a group acrostic poem and then collaborate with their partners to recite their poetry. They then add drawings to add an artistic element...

Students read various forms of poetry and identify poets, both contemporary and traditional. They discover how Shel Silverstein rhymed great stories in his poems. Afterwards, they read Shel Silverstein's poems and write verse in a...

Students read rebus samples from various sources. They write poems about colorful places, including detailed descriptions of people, scenery, and objects. Students create small, relevant illustrations to communicate meaning using symbols...

Explore the idea of democratic poetry. Upper graders read Walt Whitman, examining daguerreotypes, and compare Whitman to Langston Hughes. They describe aspects of Whitman's I Hear America Singing to Langston Hughes' Let America Be...

Take poetry off the page and put it into terms of movement, physical space and, finally, music with this series of three lessons from the Smithsonian Institution. This resource introduces students to two poetic forms that originated as...

High schoolers compare and contrast the genres of poetry and hip-hop. They view a poetry slam and write about it in their journals. Learners view a Lauryn Hill music video and respond to it in their journals. They compare and contrast...

Students investigate syllabic metre and rhyming techniques by analyzing poetry.  For this language arts lesson, students read the poem Considering the Snail and discuss the nature and mood of the poem with their classmates....

Young scholars explore the visual, auditory, and verbal worlds offered by iLife applications to create a project that engages all learners and learning styles. They create a class book and CD of nature poems and artwork.

Third graders learn about Chinese poetry and landscape paintings, then create their own. They view several examples and discuss the elements of each, then paint their own landscape inspired by what they saw. They then listen to, read,...